The loud style of this early work by Hals suits its subject, which is Vastenavond (Shrovetide or Mardi Gras), a pre-Lenten carnival featuring bad food and worse behavior. Two characters from the comic stage, Peeckelhaering (Pickled Herring) and Hans Wurst (John Wiener?), cozy up to a young "lady" with a Dutch boy haircut and a bull neck. Hans's gesture, the deflated bagpipe, and other motifs comprise a chorus of sexual commentary. The picture looks surprisingly Flemish in its vivid coloring, loose brushwork, and crowded composition, which suggests that it may date from slightly after Hals's three months in Antwerp during 1616. In that mecca for Netherlandish artists he could have seen great works by Rubens and the early paintings of his own Flemish counterpart, Jacob Jordaens (1593–1678).

This picture was probably painted about 1616–17, and is one of the artist's earliest surviving works. That Hals visited his native Antwerp in 1616 suggests that the picture's seemingly Flemish qualities—the bright palette, broad brushwork, and impulsive rhythms over the entire surface—may have been inspired partly by contemporaneous pictures by Jacob Jordaens (1593–1678) and other Antwerp artists. Its manner of execution and level of quality are entirely consistent with autograph works by Hals.

The subject is Vastenavond (Eve of Lent, or Shrove Tuesday). Known elsewhere as Mardi Gras, the occasion is celebrated with a carnival devoted to foolish behavior and popular foods such as pancakes and sausages. Slive's suggestion (1970) that the central figure is a boy in drag is supported by the hairstyle, which looks peculiar for a woman of the time. It seems likely that, with his laurel wreath, the youth has been crowned "queen" for the day and dressed in overly extravagant attire. He is flanked by two familiar characters of the comic stage: on the left, Pekelharing (Pickled Herring), and at right, Hans Worst (John Sausage). These names were assigned to stock figures in satirical comedies, which were performed by chambers of rhetoricians, or rederijkers, usually in private rooms. The organizations were exclusively male, and the humor often coarse. Hals himself was a "second member" or "friend" of a Haarlem chamber of rhetoric; this painting must have been inspired by his familiarity with rhetoricians, and was perhaps intended for a chamber of rhetoric, an individual rederijker, or an enthusiast of bawdy plays.

In any case, the subject and symbols were too lewd for the average Haarlem household. Pekelharing wears a garland of Shrovetide victuals, including salted herring and mussels, which symbolized male and female genitals. Eggs, also present in the garland, were considered an aphrodisiac and were a sign of male prowess or, when cracked (as here), impotence. The figure wears a pig's trotter, symbol of gluttony, and holds a foxtail, emblem of foolishness. Sausages dangle from Hans Worst's cap and are also on the table, which is strewn with an array of items alluding to "male" and "female" forms, including the bagpipes and open tankard.

The composition inspired numerous copies and variants, including a painted version of the entire design by Dirck Hals, signed and dated 1637 (Institut Néerlandais, Fondation Custodia, Fritz Lugt Collection, Paris). A similar composition was formerly in the Metzger collection, New York. Another amplification, with the central figure transformed, is now in the Instituut Collectie Nederland. Dirck Hals included the central figure group in his Banquet in the Garden (Musée du Louvre, Paris) and Merry Company (Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt), both of about 1620. Mathys van den Bergh made a pen drawing (signed and dated 1660; Institut Néerlandais, Fondation Custodia, Fritz Lugt Collection, Paris) after the painting. The drawing is inscribed on the back Vastenavonts-gasten. Willem Buytewech made chalk drawings after the heads of the two principal male figures (about 1616; Institut Néerlandais, Fondation Custodia, Fritz Lugt Collection, Paris).

Cleaning in 1951 uncovered the six heads in the background, which had been painted out at an unknown date. The three painted copies and the drawing by Van den Bergh all include these background heads.

Wilhelm R. Valentiner. The Hudson-Fulton Celebration: Catalogue of an Exhibition Held in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1909, vol. 1, p. 146, no. 22A, ill. opp. p. 146, dates it about 1615 and notes that there is a copy of the composition by Dirck Hals in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Frans Hals, His Life and Work. Berlin, 1914, vol. 1, pp. 19–20, 25, no. 1, pl. 1, Binder dates it to the early 1620s; he states that the man at right also appears in "Married Couple in a Garden" (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) and in the oval portrait of a standing man (Duke of Devonshire) and suggests identifying him as Dirck Hals.

François Monod. "La Galerie Altman au Metropolitan Museum de New-York (2e article)." Gazette des beaux-arts, 5th ser., 8 (November 1923), pp. 300–302, attributes it entirely or partly to an artist in Hals's circle rather than to Hals himself; states that the central male figure also appears in "The Merry Trio" (lost; copy formerly in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum, Berlin [destroyed]), as the figure in the painting on the easel in "Young Painter" (Musée du Louvre, Paris), and in Dirck Hals's "Musical Party" (Michaelis collection, Capetown).

Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Frans Hals, des meisters Gemälde. 2nd ed. Stuttgart, 1923, p. 306, ill. p. 12, dates it about 1616–20; identifies it with a "Fassnacht" [Shrove Tuesday] included in an auction in Amsterdam on June 5, 1765; states that the background of the composition originally included six heads, which have been overpainted but are revealed in two copies after the painting: a drawing by Van den Berghe (now Institut Néerlandais, Fondation Custodia, Frits Lugt Collection, Paris) and a painting (S. Borchard, New York; later H. Metzger, New York); agrees [see Ref. Bode and Binder 1914] that the man at right also appears in the double portrait in the Rijksmuseum and in the portrait belonging to the duke of Devonshire, and suggests that he may be the artist himself.

W. R. Valentiner. "The Self Portraits of Frans Hals." Art in America 13 (April 1925), pp. 152–54, repeats his argument that the man at right appears in several other paintings and is a self-portrait.

W. Martin. "Buytewech, Rembrandt en Frans Hals." Oud-Holland 42 (1925), pp. 50–51, fig. 4, states that this painting, which he dates before 1616, was influenced by a lost "Musical Company" by Buytewech, of which he reproduces an old copy (fig. 3).

Franz Dülberg. Frans Hals: Ein Leben und ein Werk. Stuttgart, 1930, pp. 48, 52, 54, pl. 13, dates it about 1615–20; states that the female figure also appears in "Young Man and Woman in an Inn" (MMA, 14.40.602), in "The Merry Trio" formerly in Berlin, and possibly in the "Married Couple" in Amsterdam.

Tancred Borenius. "'A Merry Company at Table' by Frans Hals." Pantheon 6 (December 1930), p. 572, states that the version noted by Hofstede de Groot [see Ref. 1928] "is of particular interest in showing us the master's own conception of the group in its entirety".

Hans Kauffmann. "Overzicht der Litteratuur betreffende Nederlandsche Kunst." Oud-Holland 48 (1931), p. 228, based on the altered style of the woman's dress in the version in The Hague [see Ref. Hofstede de Groot 1928], calls that work a later variant of this painting.

Seymour Slive. "On the Meaning of Frans Hals' 'Malle Babbe'." Burlington Magazine 105 (October 1963), p. 436, notes that the subject is the celebration of Shrovetide, a holiday "traditionally dedicated to fools and foolishness"; adds that the old copies of the work suggest that it has been cut down on all four sides.

Pierre Descargues. Hals. Geneva, 1968, p. 18, mentions it as a work that might have influenced Hals's pupil Adriaen Brouwer.

Calvin Tomkins. Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1970, pp. 172–73 [rev., enl. ed., 1989].

Seymour Slive. "Text." Frans Hals. 1, London, 1970, pp. 7, 33–37, 58, 67, 80, 94, 96, 152, identifies the man at left as "Peeckelhaering" and the one at right as "Hans Wurst", stock figures in contemporary Dutch farces; suggests that the central figure might be a young male actor dressed as a woman; discusses the symbolism of the food and other objects in the picture.

Seymour Slive. "Catalogue." Frans Hals. 3, London, 1974, pp. 3–4, 116–17, no. 5, fig. 53 (monogram), tentatively connects it with the picture included in the 1765 sale in Amsterdam; discusses numerous related works; rejects the identification of the figure at right as either Frans Hals, Dirck Hals, or the man in the Amsterdam double portrait.